Wanderer
by ExplosionsAreFun
Summary: I'm getting out of here, finally.


Sometimes I'd go on winding walks through the forest.

I don't know why. Maybe I needed some time alone. Maybe I still hadn't recovered, four seasons later. Maybe I was searching for a purpose in life, and I hoped to find it between the dense trees of ThunderClan territory.

Maybe I'm just insane.

They think I don't hear them, but I do. Just today, as I was leaving camp, I heard the queens gossiping about me again.

"He's crazy," they say. "He doesn't know what he's doing."

At an earlier time, I would've cared. I would've been offended. I would've tried to prove them wrong.

But now, I just felt the same nothing I always did. The nothing, the sense that has filled me ever since her death.

I've tried to feel other emotions- I have. But when I see enemy warriors, I don't feel the hatred I see in my kin's eyes. When I see newborn kits, I don't feel a fierce desire to protect them, as I sense in the father's loving gaze. When I see the elderly, the sick, I don't feel sympathy, as I see in my sister's constant visits and gifts that continued from when she was an apprentice until now.

I used to feel all these things, and more. But now they're just a memory of what has been.

"He's crazy," they say.

Maybe they're right.

The nothingness led me towards a large rock that sat in the sun. Somehow I always ended up here- a gray boulder surrounded by trees, exposed to the sun by a break in the leaves. I climbed up the rock with little effort and surveyed my surroundings. No one around. I curled up and remembered, once again, the last time I felt emotion.

* * *

_"Falconblaze! Over here!"_

_"I'm coming!"_

_I jumped over an apprentice fighting a rogue that looked about the same age and ran to Blossomheart's side. She was pelting across camp when caught up to her. The tortoiseshell she-cat's green eyes were wide. "They're heading for the kits!"_

_I sped up, running towards the nursery as fast as I could, my mate beside me._

_We burst into the nursery to see a nightmare before our eyes._

_Our kits were trapped in the corner, being held there by a well-muscled she-rogue. "You're going to come with me, little kits," she said in a snarl, "or I will kill you."_

_Before I could say anything, Blossomheart took off and jumped, landing squarely on the other she-cat. "YOU WILL LEAVE MY KITS ALONE, FOX-HEART!" Blossomheart raked her left eye with sharp claws, causing it to bleed. The she-rogue gasped and flung her off. I raced over to help my mate up, but she said, "GO! GET THE KITS!"_

_I nodded and dashed towards the kits, but the rogue had recovered and jumped in front of them again. She lashed out at my ear, reducing it to a bloody stump in an instant, and I cried out. Blossomheart had taken the chance to dash behind her and take the kits, and I swiped a claw at her pale ginger face. She yowled and pinned me down. I took the opportunity to claw her belly with my hind paws, and she put her mouth at my neck, about to bite down when she saw Blossomheart dashing outside, our two kits in her mouth. She abandoned me and chased after Blossomheart. I scurried up as quickly as I could and ran after her._

_But I was too late._

_She swiped the kits out of Blossomheart's mouth with one clean stroke, and they kit the wall of the nursery, hard. In an instant I knew they were dead._

_Anger surged inside of me, and I pounced again, with renewed energy. We rolled around for a bit, each of us struggling to get on top, when suddenly I was pinned, again. All my sudden strength was gone, and there was only fear and knowing that I was going to be dead, when suddenly all the weight on me was gone. Blossomheart knocked her off of me in one shot, and soon we were working together to fight her, each blow calculated and skilled, in perfect synchronization. We drove her out of the nursery, away from the other kits, and had her pinned against a corner of camp. Blood was leaking out of her neck. She would be dead soon._

_"Any last words, kit-killer?" Blossomheart snarled, pure hatred in her low voice, a fire in her eyes that I had never seen before._

_"Yes. I'm..." she paused to cough up blood. "I'm taking you with me."_

_And with the last of her strength, she clawed Blossomheart's neck open._

* * *

At an earlier time, I would have tried to stop rethinking it over and over again, four seasons later. I would've told myself to get over it.

I had tried, at first. But I couldn't. While hunting, I'd remember when I had asked her to be my mate on a hunting mission, when it was just the two of us. While patrolling, I'd remember the time when we fought off a ShadowClan patrol together, as apprentices. While in the warrior's den, trying to sleep, I'd remember when she'd snuggle up against me on cold nights.

Everything, everywhere reminded me of her.

So I had given up. I was a remnant of my former self. My clanmates didn't care for me, and I didn't care for them. My only sibling had become the medicine cat and was destined to walk alone, and my parents had died from a bad bout of greencough.

I felt a breeze and turned towards where it came from, from the south, where the horseplace was, and I felt something.

Longing.

A feeling that was urging me to go away from ThunderClan.

It was strange, feeling something after seasons of nothing.

But I loved it.

I got up and started walking towards the WindClan border. I doubted that Darkstar would miss me. After a while, I was running. I couldn't wait to get out of here and start my new life, far away from ThunderClan.


End file.
